Thursday, March 24, 2011

Pulse

Pulse turned out to be one of the most chilling movies I have ever seen- and I think this is because of how realistic it is for a ghost story. In comparison to other Japanese horror films we have watched, the acting was actually spot on for the most part, so it did not distract from getting caught up in the action, and the score and cinematography were really entertaining as well. But what I think is the most horrifying is how close to reality this story was; first of all, it used the young internet to combine the spirit world with the human world, in a way that suggests a supernatural consequence of our breaking-away from human interaction and connection. This is something that I am wary of anyways, without the threat of ghosts using our disconnectedness to haunt us. Furthemore, if I had to conjure up an idea of what a spirit or ghost would actually look like if I saw one right here and now, I guess the ghosts in Pulse are as close as I can imagine...I thought it was really effective to have them unsteadily "pulse" between this realm and theirs, in a murky way that suggests even they are disoriented by their situation. It just seems a lot more believable for the "spirit realm" to have imperfections like that. This movie actually left me pondering the issues it brought to mind, about what happens after death, and did not offer any kind of sugar-coated ending so it was definitely the most effectively horrifying film we have watched in this class, it is one of the most genuinely unsettling horror films I can recall seeing.